Fundación Vidanta Award 2013 Winners.
Jury Meeting
The Panel of Judges for the Fundacion Vidanta Award met on September 6 in Quintana Roo, Mexico, to choose the winning institutions for the corresponding prizes for the year 2013. The Panel was comprised of: Carmelo Angulo (Spain), Rebeca Grynspan (Costa Rica), Nora Lustig (Mexico), Jos? Luis Machinea (Argentina), Luis Maira (Chile), Billie Miller (Barbados) and Julio Mar?a Sanguinetti (Uruguay). Having observed all of the formalities and established procedures in the rules for the Fundacion Vidanta Award, and after due consideration of the candidates and deliberation about the same, the Panel of Judges has decided to award the following initiatives
Download Award CertificationFirst Prize: Asociación Colectivo Mujeres al Derecho, Colombia (Women's Rights Collective).
It's an association that has worked in the Colombian Caribbean regi?n since 2005. Through its program ¿Multicultural Space for Women? it supports more than 2,000 women of African descent and indigenous women who have been displaced, to promote and stimulate the whole human and sustainable development of their communities through their participation in different decision-making forums at the local, state, and national levels.
Second Prize: IXIM, A.C., México
IXIM A.C. works with Tzeltal communities in the town of Ocosingo, Chiapas, with high marginalization, supporting the communities to help them move from receiving direct food assistance toward sustainable food production. The ¿IXIM way? model combines impactful actions in different periods of time: immediate term, alleviating hunger between harvests through the provision of maiz, medium-term, through sustainable fields, vegetable gardens, water tanks, and poultry to increase their food production and quality, and long-term, through agro-ecological farming practices, which help the land recuperate its fertility.
For more information: http://www.ixim.org.mx/
Third Prize: Proyecto Transgénero, Ecuador (Transgender Project).
The project started in 2002 with the goal of working with the population of transgender street sex workers, civil servants, national police, and the transgender population in Quito. A Legal Patrol was created? an innovative idea based on the concept of alternative use of right? that consists of the intervention of successive teams of itinerant legal counsel that patrol the streets of the city bringing legal advice to the communities of transgender sex workers.
For more information: http://www.proyecto-transgenero.org/
Lifetime Achievement Award: Fundación de Beneficencia Hogar de Cristo, Chile
The Foundation came to life in Chile in 1944 through an initiative of San Alberto Hurtado, a Jesuit priest that had a great impact on the country?s social thinking. Its main purposes are to reduce the exclusion of the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of society and bring together the entire society for the task of social integration. It has established itself as the most important institution helping poor and excluded people in the country. It has attended to the needs of the groups that are most excluded from society, responding promptly to emergencies (Santiago flood of 1994, earthquake of Feb. 27, 2010), adapting its methodologies and lines of action to changes in society, collaborating with and influencing different sectors and the State to establish public policies that will reduce poverty and exclusion. In the last few years it has created campaigns and proposed intervention models to influence public policies focused on combating poverty and inequality.
For more information: http://www.hogardecristo.cl/